Surgery Godfather
Chapter 947 - 812 Strategic Determination_2

Chapter 947: Chapter 812 Strategic Determination_2

"Previous surgeries had been performed three times, there’s bound to be adhesion and anatomical fuzziness, pay attention!"

Academician Wang’s well-intentioned reminder that adhesion is the surgeon’s worst enemy.

The pericardium is the heart’s outer garment, enclosing the heart. Yang Ping adjusted the direction of the electric knife in his hand, and as a wisp of light smoke drifted into the suction tube, followed by a sizzling sound, the pericardium was opened, decisively and completely in one go.

A slight odor from the electrosurgery leaked out, which could be smelled even through the mask.

Academician Wang’s experience seemed to be of little help to Yang Ping; even in the presence of adhesions, the electrosurgery cut without mercy, without hesitation or second thoughts, achieving it in one attempt, yet it was just right, only cutting through the pericardium, stopping at the surface of the epicardium.

The electrosurgery relies on thermal effect to cut, and its damage range is specific. If not handled with precision, it can lead to unnecessary collateral damage.

So when using the electric knife for cutting, one must be familiar with its damage range. The thermal damage range of the electric knife decreases with distance, and it also has certain relationships with the type of target tissue. Very few people are capable of precise cutting with the electric knife because it is fundamentally not a precision cutting tool. The cheapest precision cutting tool is an ordinary scalpel, and the high-end ones include laser knives.

Using such a crude instrument as an electric knife, Yang Ping still managed to open the pericardium without damaging the epicardium, indicating that he had mastered the electric knife to a certain extent.

After opening the pericardium, Yang Ping replaced the electric knife with a regular scalpel because the flaws of the electrosurgery could potentially lead to serious consequences in the next steps.

The heart’s beating relies on a series of electrophysiological supports, and the "wires" responsible for conducting the electrical signals—conduction bundle—are buried within the myocardium, invisible to the naked eye. If one inadvertently cuts through these conduction bundles while slicing through the myocardium, it would result in a conduction block. The consequences of a conduction block affect the heartbeat; without the transmission of electrical signals, the myocardium cannot contract and naturally cannot beat.

At that point, to enable the heart to beat, one would have to install a permanent pacemaker.

That is, the heart loses its ability to beat on its own and must rely on a pacemaker’s assistance for life.

If it were a normally anatomical heart, an experienced doctor could make approximate judgments about the direction of the conduction bundles based on normal anatomical knowledge, trying to avoid the conduction bundles as much as possible.

But this is a malformed heart which has been through three surgeries already; major vessels have been transposed after the surgeries, so normal anatomical knowledge is not very useful.

In order to avoid the conduction bundles as much as possible, Yang Ping used a finer scalpel for the incision and separation.

Sharp separation is the most precise method of separation, and a scalpel is the best tool for sharp separation. Precision means a need for sharpness, and sharpness can be difficult to control.

Therefore, using a scalpel in risky areas requires highly advanced surgical skills.

Originally, a laser knife is more precise than a scalpel, but it also has thermal damage, albeit very slight, which Yang Ping cannot tolerate; even minor thermal damage theoretically could harm the conduction bundles.

Yang Ping’s scalpel delicately lifted the outer layer of the heart, the myocardium peeked out from the opened epicardium, revealing an extremely complex interior. The heart and the major vessels were originally malformed, and after three surgeries, the relationships between various structures had become intricately complex.

Even Academician Wang himself frowned upon seeing the heart on the screen, indicating a tough bag of worms that would make anyone’s scalp tingle.

To strip away all previous surgeries and then reconstruct eight different structures is something any cardiac surgeon would fear, not knowing where to start.

"He’s performing a standard Fontan Surgery!"

Academician Wang reminded promptly.

There was no need to say too much, just this one sentence was enough. It informed Yang Ping how the surgery had been done at the time, which areas had been incised, what had been done to them, and what state they might be in now.

"Prepare, extracorporeal circulation, cardiac arrest!"

Yang Ping commanded.

In fact, Sanbo Hospital’s extracorporeal circulation team had little experience before because there were relatively few heart surgeries. However, since Yang Ping began performing heart surgeries, they have been getting more and more work, all of high quality, so their experience has been accumulating abundantly.

Learning the ropes is a necessary path for any budding doctor.

Soon, they initiated extracorporeal circulation, and cardiac arrest was induced.

"I’m going to start dismantling the original surgery!" Yang Ping warned the assistants, getting them mentally prepared.

---

Family waiting area of the operating room.

Song Hanhui’s mother, Yao Xiurong, was restless, pacing back and forth, and occasionally wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

But Old Song was thick-skinned; his attitude was the complete opposite of his wife’s. He was actually sitting in the family waiting area, humming a tune and bobbing his head as if there was no urgency at all.

At this time, any normal parent would be as anxious as ants on a hot pan, unable to sit still or find peace of mind.

Because their child might not make it off the operating table.

"How can you not be worried at all?"

Yao Xiurong was discontented with Old Song’s "appalling" attitude, but she was powerless to change it; he was always like this, no matter what urgent situation they faced.

"What’s the use of worrying, does it cure heart disease? Can concern solve problems? Aren’t there doctors inside? We just wait," retorted Old Song, thinking his wife was unproductively anxious, which sometimes could even be counterproductive.

"But you shouldn’t be humming a song, at least."

Yao Xiurong complained, her heart in turmoil while Old Song was here humming tunes, acting as if it wasn’t his son undergoing surgery inside.

Old Song said disdainfully, "If I don’t hum, should I wail and beat the ground to be considered a qualified father? What good does my worrying do? Whether the surgery is successful or not has nothing to do with whether or not I worry. Instead, I need to maintain my composure, understand? If it weren’t for my composure, would our son have found such a good doctor? Your relative kept saying going to South Korea for the surgery would cure him, and you kept pushing me to go. When I didn’t agree, you accused me of being stingy, without using your brain to think. How many skilled doctors can there be in South Korea, a country as small as a mung bean, and even if they have any, how many surgeries can they perform in a year? Fixing chests and butts, maybe, but heart surgery? Are they up to it? I don’t want to scold you, but you’re always causing trouble. If it wasn’t for my strategic determination, and my insistence on having Professor Wang from Fuwai take a look, how could we have had this opportunity to have the surgery done here?"

"This isn’t humming a song; this is strategic determination, understand?"

"Now you’re being arrogant?"

Yao Xiurong didn’t retort, because everything Old Song said made sense.

It had indeed happened just like that—a relative suggested they send their child to South Korea for the surgery, claiming their medical standards were higher, prompting Yao Xiurong to urgently push Old Song to take their child there. But after they went, the South Korean doctor suggested an immediate surgery, which Old Song firmly rejected. Going to South Korea was only to fulfill his wife’s insistence to stop the nagging; he still believed in the skills of Chinese doctors.

So Old Song inquired how many such surgeries were performed annually in South Korea, and they hemmed and hawed.

Later, Old Song ignored his wife’s outcry, staunchly refusing surgery in South Korea, and came back. To shut his wife’s mouth for good, he found out that the South Korean doctor hardly had performed any cases of congenital heart disease—a close call!

"Back when we bought our house in Shanghai, what did our relatives say? They said buying a house in Shanghai was a waste of money, too expensive. It’s better to save the money and earn interest, then retire to our hometown, buy a house and live comfortably. It was me who, against all pressure, took out a loan to buy the house. After so many years of paying the mortgage, look how much the house has appreciated. That’s called strategic vision. Stop blabbering all day; you need strategic determination and vision. You just have to follow my lead; this head of mine isn’t too shabby," said Old Song, pointing at his round head.

"Wife, don’t worry, don’t lose your composure, understand? Now we leave everything to the doctors and wait patiently. Whether it works or not is not for us to determine. Just keep quiet for a while, okay?"

Old Song crossed his legs again and started humming a tune.

"How can I not be anxious? Should I knock on the door to ask? Or should you call Professor Wang to inquire about the situation inside?" Yao Xiurong worriedly asked.

"You’re only making trouble. It hasn’t been that long since they went in. Let’s quietly wait and be ready to assist the doctors whenever necessary. Ready to sign whatever needs to be signed, understood?" Old Song chided.

Yao Xiurong nodded, but her heart was still in turmoil.